i've read her with these eyes
by katanafleet
Summary: Clara remembered, suddenly, a day like this not long ago. She had just returned to traveling with him after the Christmas debacle. When she had entered the TARDIS, she had found the Doctor leaning limply and silently against the console, rubbing his fingers over his wedding ring. This was his day for River.


I've read her with these eyes– katana_ fleet– poet – bastille

 _Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust._

The TARDIS landed outside of Clara's apartment complex with a quieter _whoosh_ than usual. Clara pushed open the door to the good old Sexy slowly; she had traveled with the Doctor long enough to know that difference in routine wasn't usually good.

He could be trapped somewhere unusual; he could be lost inside the TARDIS; he could be hiding somewhere sulking or ready to pounce on her. None were particularly good options.

The TARDIS chirped calmingly and Clara grinned, stroking the console. The console where the Doctor normally stood, maniacally grinning and telling her about their adventure for the day, was unmoving and silent. He wasn't there.

"Doctor?" she called.

Finally he replied. "Go away, Clara."

His voice was gruff and held a note of warning, like a cat snarling at a dog not to come any closer or risk its wrath.

Clara glanced around the console room and finally skipped up the stairs. The Doctor sat in his favorite chair next to his bookcase. Open on his lap was a book.

"What's the matter, Doctor?" she asked, creeping closer. He grunted. "What book is that?"

Before he could answer she noticed the empty space in the shelf. The empty space belonged to _The Time Traveler's Wife_.

Clara remembered, suddenly, a day like this not long ago. She had just returned to traveling with him after the Christmas debacle. When she had entered the TARDIS, she had found the Doctor leaning limply against the console, rubbing his fingers over his wedding ring.

This was his day for River.

After all this time of traveling with the Doctor, she still knew so little about his wife. She had gathered, from short mentions of her, that she had been pretty brilliant.

She died saving the Doctor; she could probably fly the TARDIS, since only loss of the TARDIS would make the Doctor live with otters for any amount of time; she knew the Doctor's name.

That alone, Clara figured, made her pretty special.

The Doctor glanced up at her and quickly darted his eyes back to his book. Clara leaned over his shoulder. Parts of the page were underlined and annotated with his elegant script.

 _Why is love intensified by absence?_ Next to the line, the Doctor had written "more time apart than together" in thick words.

 _I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always_. Next to that, he had written "I always asked her to stay, but she never did, except that once." That was the scrawl of his eleventh self, but somewhat weakened, as if by old age.

The Doctor growled, like that cat who's trying one last time to get the dog away before it brings out the claws. Clara kissed him on the cheek and walked back down to the first level of the console room. She sat down in the pilot's chair to wait.

On Trenzalore, the Doctor had known that he was going to regenerate. Judging by when he became Grumpy Scot, memory loss was a common side effect of regeneration.

The Doctor had started, on Trenzalore, to write in that book, _The Time Traveler's Wife_ , to remember his wife. He didn't want to be the Doctor and not remember River Song.

She waited for a few minutes, listening to the Doctor flip through the novel. She stood and stared up at him.

Once, she had found a picture of his previous regeneration with River, a redheaded woman, and a man with an unfortunate nose. Somewhere in the back of her mind, an echo, the echo that died in the Dalek Asylum, filled in _Amy and Rory, the Doctor's Ponds_.

She had tried to ask the other Doctor about his previous companions once after seeing the interesting group of them that time with the holographic leopard, but he had replied cheerily, "Why do you want to hear about them when we can go to New New India? I've got a message asking for help and telling me to bring a large vat of butter, see, isn't this cool?" Needless to say, that Doctor, her first Doctor, had never told her anything about his friends.

But this one might.

"Doctor?" she called. The page-flipping stopped.

"What, Clara?" he asked wearily. She slowly walked back up the stairs and looked at him. There was one tear trailing down his face. She stepped up to him and brushed the tear away.

"Will you tell me about her?"

The Doctor looked at her for a moment, probably trying to peer into her brain. Finally, he handed her the book he had been cradling and stood. He walked back to the console and stared at the rotor.

Clara sat in his chair and looked at the book. It was old and the spine was tearing. It was the best-loved book she had ever seen. Slowly, she opened it.

 _And we laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost or dead or far away. Right now we are here and nothing can mar our perfection or steal the joy of this perfect moment._

Next to it, the Doctor had written, "The good moments. They don't always make up for the bad ones. But after everything, moments with her were always worth the bad. Never forget that. _Never forget it_."

Slowly, Clara marked the page with the TARDIS key, closed the book, and returned it to its place. She walked back down the stairs and hugged the Doctor quickly, burying her face between his shoulders. For the second time in this man's life, he accepted the hug. Clara felt him shake for a brief moment, then he gently shook her off.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked curtly, spinning around the console.

River's memory was put aside that day, placed back on her shelf like _The Time Traveler's Wife_. But never forgotten. Not by the Doctor. Never by him.


End file.
